


On the Nature of Daylight

by black_facade



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Age Difference, Alternate Universe - Time Travel, Artist! Ben, Cunnilingus, Dandelion Girl AU, Devoted Reylo, F/M, Happy Ending, Light Angst, No Incest, No Underage Sex, Older Man/Younger Woman, Thank God I'm Not Ready To Go To Hell, Time Traveler! Rey, Two Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-16
Updated: 2019-06-16
Packaged: 2019-10-06 17:45:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 11,263
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17349728
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/black_facade/pseuds/black_facade
Summary: The girl on the hill made Ben think of his daughters, Ava and Adora.Uncannily, perhaps it was because of the way she was standing there in the afternoon sun, her chestnut hair dancing in the wind; or it was because of the way her weather-worn gauze wrap was swirling around her like a celestial maiden’s robe. In any event, he got an impression that she had somehow stepped out from the past and into the present; and that was odd because as things turned out, it was not the past she had stepped out of, but the future.***A Time Traveler AU. A Dandelion Girl AU.





	1. I. Written on the Sky

**Author's Note:**

> Hello! This is my very first fic (and smut)! Inspired from a short story by Robert F. Young, Dandelion Girl (Please do check it out, it’s a lovely story that needs more love!)
> 
> So I would really appreciate any comment or critics (whether it is about how I write, grammar, or vocab, etc.)! You can bother me on my tumblr [black-facade-writes](https://black-facade-writes.tumblr.com/) , and feel free to DM me or ask me questions there!

  


**I.**

**Written on the Sky**

 

 

 

The girl on the hill made Ben think of his daughters, Ava and Adora.

 

Uncannily, perhaps it was because of the way she was standing there in the afternoon sun, her dark-hazelnut hair was dancing in the wind; or it was because of the way her weather-worn gauze wrap was swirling around her like a celestial maiden’s robe. In any event, he got an impression that she had stepped out of the past and came into the present; and that was odd because as things turned out, it was not the past she had stepped out of, but the future instead.

 

He paused some distance behind her, gasping hard from the climb. She had not seen him yet, and he wondered how he would apprise her of his presence without alarming her. Making up his mind, he took a seat on a granite bench, and took out his sketchbook and pen of his sling bag. He wondered about the title of his sketch, _Stranger on the Hill? Maiden May? Dandelion Girl?_ When he looked at her again to begin, she had turned around and regarded him carefully.

 

She approached him slowly. He was keenly aware of the nearness of the sky, enjoying the touch of the wind on his face. _I should go and hike more often_ , he thought to himself. He had tramped through the woods before reaching the hill, and now the woods lay behind and far below him, swaying gently with the breezy wind of spring, and beyond the woods lies the little lake with its complement of cabin and fishing pier. When his wife called to visit their son, Rhys, at the University of Coruscant and was asked to oversee an engineering project in the said university, he was forced to spend the two weeks of their planned trip alone and had been leading a lonely existence; fishing off the pier during the day and reading in the cool evenings before the large fireplace in the raftered living room of the family cabin. It was until two days that the routine had caught up to him, and he set off into the woods without purpose or direction and finally, he had come to the hill and had climbed it and seen the girl.

 

Her eyes were hazel with curiosity hidden beneath the hard gaze. He saw it when she came up to him. The tall blue sky framed her slender silhouette, her face was square-ish but youthful and sweet and was slightly hardened by circumstances unknown to him. It evoked a _déjà vu,_ so poignant that he had to resist an impulse to reach out and touch her wind-kissed, freckled cheek; and even though his hand did not leave his side, he felt his fingertips tingle.

 

 _I’m fifty_ , he thought wonderingly, and she’s hardly a teenager. _What has come over me?_ “Enjoying the view?” He asked loudly.

 

“Yes,” she said and turned to see the woods below her. “I’ve never seen such greeneries before,” he could sense the smile from her voice.

 

He followed her gaze. Below them, the woods began again, it spread out over the scenic lowlands in warm green colors, embracing a small hamlet several miles away, finally bowing out before the first outpost of the suburban frontier. In the far distance, haze softened the serrated silhouette of Theed, Capital of Naboo, lending it the aspect of a sprawling medieval building, making it less of a reality than a dream. “Are you from the city?” He asked.

 

“Not really,” she said. She smiled at him. “I’m from nowhere, really. From Niima of Jakku, three hundred years from now.”

 

The smile told him that she didn’t really expect him to believe her, but it implied that it would be nice if he pretended. He smiled back. “That would be twenty-three hundred and thirty-nine,” he said. “This place would have grown enormous then.”

 

“I think so,” she said unsurely. “I’ve never been to this place before in the future, I don’t go out from Jakku,” she continues, “I can only tell you Jakku since that’s the only place I know.”

 

“What’s Jakku like?” Ben asked.

 

She gave him a tight-lipped little smile as if she knew a secret. “If you imagine a futuristic place with towering skyscrapers and busy people with speeders like in the stories of science fiction, you’re wrong. Jakku is hot and dry! The only job that gets you food is by being a scavenger and trading what you’ve found in the sands,” she told him. “You see, in the future, we can travel across the galaxy with starships. The ones in Jakku are those dead star-destroyers in the Graveyard of Giants, and they’re humongous, their size reaches from this point,” She pointed to the fringe of the woods at their feet, “to the groves of tree.”

 

It’s a grove of sugar maple tree. If the so-called “star-destroyer” spanned easily from this hill to the grove two miles away, then what a gigantic ship it was. _Even bigger than the Zumwalt_ , he thinks.

 

“It takes days to strip a star-destroyer off its useful components. Bigger starships like super star-destroyer, would take a longer time. When you’re in those dead ships, you’re bound to find skeletons here and there. Skeletons of the past personnel,” she continues. She is beginning to feel at ease as she keeps on talking.

 

“That’s morbid, aren’t you scared?”

 

“No. You’ll get used to it sooner or later,” she shakes her head, “These days you see more skeletons and log-recorders in those ships. Getting stuff like stabilizer, generator, battery, or anything valuable to trade, anything to get the rations, comes harder and harder everyday…” she explains solemnly as she tucks her loose hair behind her ear.

 

He looked at her politely and saw the hardships that permanently etched on her arms. He sees light scars crisscrossing her hands and calloused fingers, unmanicured like the girls of her age and this era supposed to be. The thought of her suffering and the mention of getting food by scavenging had made his mood turn sour. This he can’t understand; he realizes because his wife is the only person that can evoke this sense of bitter sympathy in him.

 

“Can I ask you something?” he asked her.

 

“Sure, I’ve talked too much, you can ask me whatever you like,” she smiles.

 

“I have a feeling that you’ve traveled here with a time machine. Am I wrong?” he put his sketchbook and pen inside his bag and he then grabbed out a bottle of water. She eyes his bottle hungrily as he pours a cup and gave it to her, which she immediately gulps down in thirst.

 

“Thank you. Yeah, I invented one.”

 

Ben could feel his eyes go rounder to her guile’s countenance. He looked at her closely, if she claimed to be the one to invent one, she was too young to understand the complicated and nearly impossible science of time-traveling. “Did you get the parts for your time machine from scavenging?” he asked.

 

“Yes! I save some of them, made them! I hid them from Unkar Plutt; he would pay me many portions for those parts, but he would always pay me less than what I deserved,” she gushed with a easy-wide grin.

 

“Then, do you come here often?”

 

“Countless times, this is my favourite space-time coordinate. I would stand here for hours sometimes and I would just look and look and look. I would forage for foods in the woods, searched for those edible plants, mushroom, and berries. I even collected water here, it’s fresher, which was is so rare in Jakku,” she continues, “You know, the day before yesterday I saw a rabbit, and yesterday a deer, and today, you.”

 

 _Huh?_ “But how can there be a yesterday,” Ben asked, “if you always return to the same point in time?”

 

“I see what you mean,” she said. “The machine is affected by the passage of time just like anything else, and you have to set it back every twenty-four hours if you wish to maintain the same time coordinate. But I’ve never done that because I prefer a different day every time I come back. It makes me love this place even more.”

 

“I see. Didn’t you ever bring anyone here with you? Your family?”

 

Overhead, a skein of geese was drifting lazily by, and she watched it for some time before she spoke. “I never knew my parents,” she said finally. “All I knew since I was a child is that I’m waiting for them. One day, they’ll come back for me, and I’ll bring them here with the time machine,” she added. “Then I don't have to be alone anymore. I’ll go anywhere, I’ll travel to places at the edge of the world and experience things that I’ve never done before, so long as I’m with them,” she mutters lowly.

 

Something about the way she was looking at him touched his heart. The longing, the strong desire to belong, the same loneliness he shares before his wife enters his life. “I’m sure you’ll find them. Your family,” he said–then, “Time machine, what a wonderful invention. Your parents should be proud of you.”

 

She nodded solemnly and did not comment on his praise. Instead, she just stared at the woods as if to avoid the talk of her parents.

 

“Do you live near here?” She asked after some time.

 

“I’m staying in my family lake cabin about three or four miles away. I’m supposed to be on a vacation, but it’s not much of one. My wife is visiting my son in Coruscant and oversees a project. She couldn’t come with me and I couldn’t postpone this trip. My name is Ben Solo.”

 

“I’m Kira,” she said.

 

The name suited her. The same way the sparkle of her soul suited her––the way the blue sky suited her, and so did the hill and the May breeze. Probably she lived in the little hamlet in the woods, but it did not really matter. If she wanted to pretend she was from the future, it would be all right with him. All that really mattered was the way he felt when he had first seen her, and the tenderness that came over him every time he gazed upon her gentle face. “What kind of work do you do, Kira?” He asked. “Are you in school?”

 

“No, I’m not. I, I scavenge for living like I’ve said,” she said gloomily. Her cheeks reddened, not in the happy pride of her job, but with shame instead. “But I love inventing things! Craftsmanship, art...” she went on. “I must be well-versed on everything since I live on my own. Maybe that’s how I ended up inventing a time machine.”

 

Ben knew she is trying to stir the conversation from being too dreary. “You’re a bright one, Kira,” Ben praised her earnestly. “I’m an artist, not an inventor like you. It’s are beyond me.”

 

Her eyes gradually widened as her curiosity piqued. “Are you? I’ve never met an artist before,” she wondered.

 

Her words drove his hand to dive and rummage through his bag for the sketchbook –– a vintage cedar-colored sketchbook, with calf-skin cover and variations of thick watercolor paper, vellum, and brown newsprint. He handed the book to her and tried to hide his excitement for her comments. He was aware that he goofed like a young boy, being eager for a praise, fishing for one, but couldn’t bring himself to care.

 

“Mr. Solo, did you really make all of these?” he nods. “You’re a very, very good one!”

 

Her vigor in flipping through the pages of his sketchbook filled him in pride of his skill. He saw glimpses of colors, lines, and form of his collages as she passed through the pages until she stopped at a watercolor sketch. Her eyes widen and he could see her mouth open in astonishment.

 

She showed him the sketch, an image of his wife sleeping. It’s an old piece and his personally prized creation. His wife was made alive through the shades of graphite and colorful watercolor strokes. It’s a fast sketch, a five-minute piece, but it was hardest since he had to racing against the time and struggled with the multiple medium whilst doing the drawing and painting on the bed.

 

Kira then turned the page to the image of his wife, still laying but with her eyes open. Then she flipped the page again to show the image of his reclining wife; her gaze was clear and lucid. She was staring directly at him and her lips formed a smile. _Rey, my wife, my beloved, my sun, and my star._

_“Ben”_ he could hear her calling him.

 

“She is beautiful,” she said as she turned the sketchbook to admire the images of Rey.

 

“She is, and it’s my favourite piece too, the very best work,” he agreed.

 

She shook her head as if to grip herself away from staring at his sketches for too long. “You really are something. You must be those artists who own a big studio space with large windows! I bet you have a secretary too!” She returned the book to him, and for a moment, their fingers touched.

 

“My wife was my secretary, once…” he said after he had taken his hand away. He had felt the same tingle before when he thought of touching her face, and now, it burned.

 

“Really?”

 

“She was. She was a good one, that’s how we met, a secretary and an artist…” _Did he really say that out loud?_ He wondered.

 

“Was she a good secretary?”

 

“The very best. I was sad to lose her, but when I lost her in one sense, I gained her in another, so I guess you could hardly call that losing her…” he told her “She reminds me of you, she has an eye of an artist and she is talented at inventing things. She patented her designs, and with that, she changed the world for the better.”

 

She stared at him with those round hazel orbs of wonder and smiled at him sweetly, full of enduring sense of joy. “You must’ve love her.”

 

“I do, very much.”

 

She turned to look down upon the woods; she stays so for a while as if to remember the greeneries that were lost to her, three hundred years from now. “I must go back now, Mr. Solo,” she said, her smile didn’t reach her eyes. “I have to take care of my home-shelter, sandstorm might come tonight and I need to check all the preparations I got.”

 

“Will you be here tomorrow?”

 

“Probably. I’ve come here every day. Good-bye now, Mr. Solo.”

 

“Goodbye, Kira,” he said.

 

He watched her running lightly down the hill and disappeared into the grove of sugar maples where she left her time machine in the safety of shrubs and bushes. He smiled. She’s a charming one, he thought. It must be thrilling to have such an impressible sense of wonder, such enthusiasm for life. It brought back the memories of his boyhood where everything seemed so simple and full of marvels. He could appreciate the qualities of wonder fully because he had been denied by them. At twenty-three, he was an angry young man who had cut his ties to his family and past, working his way through the art academy under the tuition of his old mentor. At twenty-five, he gained the fame he worked hard for, as it gradually grew through it. It had occupied him completely, making him a man engrossed in his work––well, not quite completely. He met Rey when he was twenty-nine, and he married her two years later. Rhys soon came, Ava and Adora followed a few years later. Looking back, there had been nothing throughout his life that made it lost its immediacy. He had reconciled with his parents since he was unable to remove the fear of his children alienating him––he had sworn to be there for them, to listen to them, to be the place he hoped they would return to in the future, and to be a better parent than the one he had had once. Now with a wife and three children to support, he was occupied, except from the five-week vacation he had each year; three of which he spent with Rey and their children and two he spent with Rey alone in their cabin by the lake. This year, though, he was spending the second two alone, well, perhaps not quite alone.

 

He had been standing on his spot for quite some time that he did not even notice the waning sun. With nothing else to do other than to feel the breeze on his face or to watch the long afternoon shadows scarring the woods below, he decided to walk down the hill and walk back through the woods to the cabin. The spring arrived and the sky turned orange and purple shades, following the dampness of the oncoming evening that had begun to pervade in the air.

 

The sun had set by the time he reached the lake. It was a small lake with a deep running stream, and the trees came down to its edges. The cabin stood some distance away from the shore behind the pines, and a winding path connected it with the pier. Behind it is a gravel drive leading to a dirt road that gives access to a larger and smoother asphalted road. His SUV stood by in the garage, ready to whisk him back to civilization at a moment’s notice.

 

In the cabin, he prepared and ate a simple supper of brown butter perch in the kitchen, then headed for the living room to read. Selecting an anthology of poetry from the well-stocked bookcase by the fireplace, he sat down on an armchair and thumbed through a page with a hidden piece of paper stuck between the leaves. A poem that Adora made, of her being a girl on the hill with dandelion colored-wrap dress. She made it four years ago when she was ten. His girl was this treasured poem. He read it a few times, and each time he saw her standing there in the sun, her hair dancing in the wind with her gauze wrap swirling like a gentle river around her; then a lump came into his throat, and he could not swallow, a strange case of brimming emotions. _Kira._

 

He returned the book to the shelf and went out to stand on the rustic porch and filled his glass with two-finger of ten-year old scotch. He forced himself to think of Rey, and her face came into focus––her hazel-green eyes, the warm and compassionate eyes with the odd hint of fear in them that he had never been able to decipher, her still-soft tan-freckled cheeks, her vibrant smile––and each attribute was made more compelling by the memory of her vibrant dark-hazelnut hair and her tall, lithe gracefulness. As was always, when he thought of her, he found himself marvel at her agelessness, marvel how she could keep stay lovely through the years as she had been that day long-ago when he was busy reading only to be startled to hear her knocking and entered his old studio in Snoke’s gallery. It was inconceivable that twenty-one years later he could be looking forward eagerly to a tryst with an over imaginative girl who was young enough to be his daughter. Well, he wasn’t––not really. He had been momentarily swayed––that’s all. Derailed. For a moment his emotional equilibrium deserted him, and he staggered. Now his feet were back under him where they belonged, and the world returned to its sane and sensible orbit.

 

He finished his scotch and went back inside. He walked into his bedroom and he undressed and slipped between the sheets and turned out the light. Sleep could have been readily, but it was not; tortured with restlessness and images of Rey and Kira. And when it finally did come, it came in fragments interspersed with tantalizing dreams.

 

***

 

_A distant memory, a hazy past filled with images of blurry colors and hazy gestures._

_As he opened his eyes to his dream, his world was the bed room of his old apartment. It was neither bright nor dark, stuck in a limbo of the shade of grey, frozen in a reality that was nonexistent. Everything was too quiet. Too still. Even when everything was slow, the shadows kept on waxing and waning, rising and setting, following an unknown source of light hidden behind the thin voile curtain._

_In this world which was his dream, in the world which was his distant memory, all was cold, pale, and fast, and still._

_When consciousness came to him, he found himself lying on his bed with Rey beside him. She was wrapped in layers and layers of blanket, snoring softly, unaware of the man who was staring at her sleeping face, free of her usual fear and worries that marred her face daily. Her hair spread like halo that covered part of her face with strands of dark-hazelnut and he found his hand moving to gently caress her hair away, still staring at her freckled face. He peppered her with kisses, meaning for adoration and devotion across her faces before he finally settled on her rose-pink lips. After getting her response of unintelligible grunts, he moved his face away to kiss her jaw and slender neck._

_“Ben,” she mumbled, stirring between the waking and the dreaming._

_He hummed his response nonchalantly. He kept on kissing her neck, arousing her lightly only to leave trails of light-colored hickeys. And when he started to cup her bare chest, palming them, kneading them, he heard her gasping._

_“Ben,” she called him, her voice was lucid. “It’s too early,” she said after seeing the clock on the wall._

_“I know,” he nursed one of her nipples into his mouth. “I know,” and released it with a pop to lavish his attention to the other._

_“Ben,” she called him desperately. Her breath hitched, her face slowly morphed into pleasure. She closed her eyes and breathed rapidly through her mouth. “More, I need more,” she demanded._

_He hushed her with a sharp nip on rib cage that caused her to jerk. “Stay still and you’ll get what you want,” he promised her. He motioned his body lower and lower till his face hovered between her navel and the thatch of her mon pubis. “I’ll make it better,” he said as he spread her slender legs wide and placed one over his shoulder, “I promise you that.”_

_He would remember the sound of her mewl when he licked the strip of her slit. That sweet sounded cries that went straight to his core. It excited him, making him all too aware of his tight skin and heating body. He lurched forward to smack her a wet kiss on her clit, and flicked his tongue to spread her folds. When he tasted her, she tasted nothing but her arousal and the taste of their mingled spend, made from their previous less than innocent activity. He nudged her deeper with his tongue, working her open as she shifted between compliance and writhing her way out from him that he had to hold her thighs down. He decided to alternate between short kitten licks and long languid flicks to drive her to the edge._

_It did not take long before her body went boneless and pliant from his treatment. Whimpering pitifully and shivering like a dry leaf, he decided to work his fingers into her slowly. He massaged her inside and stroked that patch of flesh in her before withdrew his finger out of her slick wet and enter her again to work her up, again and again, pumping as he suckled and nibbled her bud._

_“Ben! Please!” she wailed, her hands carded through his dark locks to hold him in place. “More! I need more! I want! Please, Ben!”_

It’s just a matter of time before she reached her peak _, he thought. She grinded her core into his face, seeking for more frictions, already blinded with the needs that her rationale seemed to have left her. Her voice keened higher and higher as he worked his tongue in swirls, keeping his pace._

_“I, I’m close!” She told Ben._

_Her body finally went rigid, shaking silently after he flicked on her clit before she collapsed down to the crumpling be sheets, breathing hard as she tried to move away from him. He settled to lay on her stomach, watching her bathing in her afterglow._

_“Ben,” she huskily called him with that sing-song tone, she only called him that way when she wanted something from him. Her arms were reaching for him to come to her, and when he did, she let him kiss her deeply, not minding the taste of her own arousal or the wetness that coated his face._

_But lightheadedness came to him from nowhere and he felt himself fading away as he rested his head on her chest, the edges of his gradually consumed him in blinding white light. The excitement that fired him suddenly disappeared to the thin air, leaving him feeling heavy like a lead, sinking into her skin and filling his nose with the lingering scent of her perfume she wore the day before. He felt as if he was being swallowed in a quicksand, and he couldn’t run away from it, his mind could only take the fact that there was no use to run from it._ Embrace it, embrace it, it wouldn’t last long, _it whispered._

_“Ben,” she called him, he couldn’t move his body to see her face._

_“_ _Day before yesterday I saw a rabbit,” he heard her say, “and yesterday a deer, and today, you.”_

_***_


	2. II. On the Nature of Daylight

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello! Please bother me on my tumblr [black-facade-writes](https://black-facade-writes.tumblr.com/) , and feel free to DM me or ask me questions there!

  


**II.**

**On the Nature of Daylight**

 

 

 

In the second afternoon, she was wearing a sleeveless weather-worn shirt and brown culottes, and a utility-belt that wrapped around her slender hip. She fashioned her dark-hazelnut hair into a set of three buns. It bounced awkwardly in the winds and Ben found his hand tingling with urges to pluck them like grapes. _What an interesting hairstyle they have in the future_ , he thought.

 

After breasting the hill, he stood for some time, motionlessly, waiting till the tightness of his throat to go away. He pondered his dream back in the cabin before he went out to track the woods back to the hill. While it is was an ordinary thing to conceit tantalizing dreams, he couldn’t help feeling something amiss. Like he had sorely missed a sign–a hint that he was unable to put across since he didn’t know what it was–let alone to name and understand it. It passed through his mind like water running through. And yet, the soft curve of her throat and chin brought the tightness back, and when she turned and said with surprise marring her feature, “You came back”, as if her mind was set with the thought of his absence. It was a long while before he was able to answer.

 

“I did,” he finally said, “and so did you.”

 

“Yes,” she said. “I’m glad.”

 

They sat down on the granite bench and looked over the land. He shared his egg mayo sandwiches with her and watched how unrefined her manner was; biting down her meal without chewing it properly. He never reprimanded her, nonetheless, for he didn’t have the heart to tell her so. Later, after they finished, when he took out his pen and sketchbook from his sling bag, she scooted closer hoping to get a new glimpse of his art.

 

“I tried to draw yesterday,” she said, “Although I’m nowhere near as good as you, it made me happy.”

 

He couldn’t help putting a polite smile to her, glad that a simple act of creating could bring joy to her tiresome life. “Tell me about the future,” he said as he sketched. “And tell me more about yourself.”

 

So she began narrating. She was fourteen. She lived in an abandoned AT-AT, whatever it was, in the part of Jakku called the Goazon Badlands. Most of the time, she spent her days scavenging inside the dead remnants of the Ravager and the Inflictor, fighting her shares with the Teedos, and watching the starships coming in and flying away from the spaceports. She told him of the spinebarrels and nightblossoms she kept to remind herself of beauty and life existing even in the harshest of Jakku, of little wonderous things she found and experienced in that desolate future.

 

Afterwards, he told her about himself and Rey and their children–about his worries not being close enough to Rhys because he was so similar to his grandfather, about how he would learn a thing or two from his twins: Ava and Adora, and about Rey’s projects and her phobia of cameras. Ben told her of how Rey would always refuse to have her picture taken, even on their wedding day, and had refused ever since. He then recounted the grand time when the five of them went on camping and had a near close-to-death encounter with a grizzly bear last summer. He remembered how everyone except Adora immediately froze on the spot and how he dragged the twin away while Rhys and Rey panicked over the car key because they couldn’t seem to find it in their pockets.

 

When he finished, she said, “What a life you have! Twenty and thirty-nine must be a marvelous year to live in!”

 

“You have a time machine, you can move here anytime you like.”

 

“Well, it’s not that easy. I wouldn’t dream of leaving Jakku; my parents might come back for me! And there’s also the Time Police to take into consideration. Time travel is only limited to the members of the New Republic-sponsored historical expeditions and is out of bounds to the public.”

 

“But you seem to have done all right.”

 

“That’s because I invented my own time machine, and the Time Police didn’t know about it. They don’t know that I exist since I’m an unregistered citizen of Jakku. Poor citizens in Jakku can’t afford to get their daily meals, let alone to pay a registration fee,” she explained “After all, money is worth nothing in Jakku, only rations.”

 

He stared at her for a while to weigh her words. “You’re breaking the law,” he said quietly.

 

She nodded. “Only in their eyes, only in the light of their concept of time. I have my own.”

 

It was pleasant to hear her talk that it did not matter really what she talked about, and he wanted her to ramble on, no matter how far-fetched her subject was. “Tell me,” he said.

 

“I’ll tell you about the official concept first,” she began. “Those who endorse it will say that no one from the future should ever participate in anything occurring in the past. That is because their presence would constitute a paradox, and future events would’ve been altered in order for the paradox to be assimilated. Consequently, the Department of Time Travel makes sure that only authorized personnel have access to the time machine, and maintains a police force to apprehend the jumpers.”

 

“Jumpers or Generation Jumpers, are those who yearn for a simpler way of life and would disguise themselves as historians so they can return permanently to a different era. But to my mind, the book of time has already been written. From a macrocosmic point of view, everything that is going to happen has already happened. Therefore, if a person from the future participates in the past event, he becomes part of that event––he was part of it in the first place––therefore a paradox cannot possibly arise,” she concluded, finally.

 

Ben took a deep breath for himself. He needed it. “I take back my word. You’re not bright, you’re brilliant,” he said.

 

Her cheeks brightened in sweet blush before she averted her gaze to stare at her more interesting threadbare boots. “Th, thank you,” she muttered in shyness. “You’re not so bad either.”

 

He gave her an earnest laugh that surprised her yet made her smiled even more. “Actually, you wouldn’t believe the things that I’ve found inside the star-destroyers. There is a chamber in each star-destroyer filled with holopads from writers and thinkers of the past. They have interesting ones, written by Hegel, Kant, Hume, and Poppers; Sagan and Hawking and Tyson. I’ve–I’ve read them all myself,” she told him, her hazel eyes brightened that he could see the little green specks in it.

 

“As a matter of fact, so have I,” he approved. “It amazes me that people in the future still read them no matter how far behind those thinkers are; but people are still trying to learn and digest Plato and Aristotle today, and not to mention the religious texts that had been existing before them,” he reflected. “It’s a pleasant thing to know that ideas and thoughts could endure the hardness and uncertain future.”

 

She gazed raptly up into his face. “How wonderful, Mr. Solo,” she said. “I’ll bet we’ve got scads of mutual interests!”

 

The conversation that ensued proved conclusively that they did have––though the transcendental aesthetic, Berkeleianism and relativity were rather incongruous subjects for a man and a girl to be discussing on a May hilltop, even when the man was fifty and the girl was fourteen. But happily there were compensations––their animated discussion of the transcendental aesthetic did more than eliciting _a priori_ and _a posteriori_ conclusions, as it evoked microcosmic stars in her eyes; their breakdown of Berkeley did more than pointing up the inherent weaknesses in the good bishop theory, as it accentuated the pinkness of her cheeks; and their review of relativity did more than demonstrating that E invariably equals mc2; which also suggested that far from being impediment, knowledge is an asset to feminine charm.

 

His initial intention to sketch the woods below him evolved into portraits of her. They took turns drawing each other, with Ben easily catching the likeness of her features. Kira, on the other hand, surprised him with her skill in capturing his protruding facial details. Her sketch seemed cartoonish, but she got the little details of his aquiline nose, mole-peppered face–even his ears, that one feature he always hid behind his shoulder-length hair because they seemed too big and too stupid.

 

 _I like you ears_ , she giggled. _I’ve never seen ones so big; you must be a good listener_. She wouldn’t stop drawing him once she was finished, she drew him a few more times with staggering improvement in each picture. Although the likeness of him seemed stiff, he had given her points and tips to help her improve, savoring the pleasure of being a teacher.

 

At the end of the day, when he returned to his cabin, the mood of the moment lingered far longer that it had any right to, and it was still with him when he went to bed. This time he didn’t even try to think of Rey; he knew it would do no good. Instead he lay there in the dark and played host to whatever random thoughts came along––and all of them concerned a May hilltop and a girl with dark-hazelnut colored hair.

 

_Day before yesterday I saw a rabbit, and yesterday a deer, and today, you._

_***_

The next morning, he drove over to the hamlet and stopped by a gas station nearby. He checked notifications on his smartphone since the cabin did not receive any cellular signals. Before he went to the cabin, he had told his assistant not to bother him with anything but the most urgent of matters. Now, he had checked on his emails and there was nothing of importance that he needed to immediately reply. In the family group chat, aside from the constant presence of his children–chatting, bickering, sending memes and funny videos––he saw no chats from Rey. None. She _may be busy with her project_ , he dismissed silently.

 

He debated on whether to ask the wizened cashier if there was a girl named Kira living around the area. He decided not to. To have done so would undermine the elaborate make-believe structure which Kira had built, even if he did not believe in its validity. He could not find in his heart to topple it.

 

As he reached the top of the hill, he saw her wearing a plain sleeveless jumper, threadbare like most of her attire. His throat tightened when he saw her, and again he could not speak. _Will I ever get over this reaction whenever I see her?_ He wondered. But when the first moment passed by and words came, it was all right, and their thoughts flowed together like two effervescent brooks that coursed through the arroyo in the afternoon. This time when they parted, it was she who asked, “You’ll be here? Tomorrow?”–though only because she stole that question from his lips–and the words sang in his ears all the way back through the woods to the cabin and lulled him to a deep sleep after an evening spent on reading on the quite porch.

 

***

 

The next afternoon, he found the hill was empty without her in sight. At first a simmer of disappointment clouded him, and then he thought, _She’s late_. _She’ll show up any minute by now_. He sat down on the granite bench and waited. But she did not show up. Minutes passed by––then hours. Shadow crept out of the woods and climbed partway up the hill. The air grew colder and he could see distant flock of purple martin crowding the afternoon sky with sun setting on the horizon. He gave up, finally, and headed miserably back toward the cabin.

 

The next day she did not show up, neither did she the day after. He could neither eat nor sleep. Fishing palled him. He could not read, words had become meaningless, sentences became blurry to him; all that he read seemed nonsensical. He couldn’t bring himself to paint nor to make a basic sketch. He felt like he was facing a block that he could not overcome. And all the while, he hated himself––hated himself for behaving like a lovesick schoolboy, for reacting just like any other fools in his fifty to a pretty face and a pair of pretty legs. Up until a few days ago he had never looked at another woman other than his wife, and here in the space of less than a week he had not only looked at one but also had fallen in love with her.

 

Hope is dead in him as he climbed the hill on the fourth day––and then suddenly alive again when he saw her standing in the sun. She was wearing the same dress as the one she wore when they first met. But something was wrong, tears clouded her eyes and her lips were trembling.

 

“Kira?”

 

Before he asked her if something had gone wrong, she suddenly clung to him, her shoulders shook and she pressed her face against his coat. She was a small girl and now she felt so tiny in his arms. “My father, my mother– “she hiccupped “–my parent abandoned me,” she said.

 

“W, What?”

 

“Unkar said they had abandoned me. They sold me off to him, all for drinking money! Now they died and, and, and––”

 

He put his arms around her gently to rub her back, trying to calm her down. He had never kissed her, and he did not kiss her now, not really. His lips brushed her forehead and briefly touched her hair––that was all. “I’m sorry, Kira,” he said. “I know how much they meant to you.”

 

She sobbed into his coat; her body trembled as she cried mournfully to him. “All this time…all this time I wait for nothing!” she wailed. Ben moved her to sit on the granite bench. He said nothing as he waited for her to speak first, waiting for her sobs to die down. He let her lean on him. He let her hold his hand even after he felt the pins and needles. He could only offer her small mercies, little gestures to alleviate the pain she was feeling right now. He whispered to her hair, softly that she barely heard him. “You’ll be alright,” he assured her. “It will pass. It will pass.”

 

It took her a long time to compose herself and master her hiccupping breath. Ben offered her a packet tissues and his bottle of water. He watched her silently as she blew her nose then drank the water he gave her. Later, after she had settled down, her eyes found him, she looked uncertain. From that look, he knew he had to ask.

 

“So, this Plutt person is…” he started slowly.

 

“––My junkyard boss, the one I always trade with. He knew,” she cut him, but not unkindly. “He is using me for free labor of course, he owns me all these times,” she sighed as she wiped her tears away.

 

“He told you?” he asked.

 

Kira hung her head low. “I got into a fight with him,” she choked. “I was stuck in a sandstorm for the past two days. When it ended, I went to Unkar to trade my findings. We got into a heated argument over the rations he gave me,” she continued. “That’s when all things turn sour. He told me of my parents, useless scavengers, only smart enough to trade me for Knockback Nectar.”

 

She took a deep breath to master herself for the next part. “Funny thing is, I already knew,” she said, shamefully. “I already knew they wouldn’t come back for me. Already knew they were dead. Buried without any tombstone, not even a plank, just a debris hidden in the sands. But I can’t stop waiting for them, can’t stop believing that they loved me, that they leave me behind for a reason,” she sobbed. “Am I pathetic? Still holding on to them? I wasted my life believing they would come back to me…”

 

She burst into tears again that Ben had to immediately rub her back again. “That’s why it hurts! I hate him and now I have to live on to know that I’m unwanted!” she burst. “Why won’t they want me? What did I do wrong that they had to sell me to him!” she wailed.

 

“Kira. Kira, listen to me,” Ben tried to hush her. “Kira you never did anything wrong. I’m sorry that you have to experience this. I’m sorry for all the hardships you have to endure for them,” he gulped. “But it’s not your loss to have parents like them.”

 

“W, what?” Rey stuttered; her eyes turned wide as if she was seeing him having two heads. “What do you mean by that?”

 

“Kira, you’re never in the wrong. You’re a bright kid, your future would be better without them,” he emphasized. “It’ll get better. You just need time to process all of this. You have a long way up ahead, you got times to make your future. It’ll get easier, I guarantee that,” he continued.

 

She jerked away from him that she stood and looked down on him with fury clouding her eyes. “Better? It’ll get better? I told you it’ll get better when I don’t have to eat the same portion every single day and work myself to death in those star destroyers! It’ll get better when I don’t have to haggle my price with Unkar every day! And it’ll get better if I don’t have to be alone for the rest of my life in those deserts of Jakku!” she spat.

 

Ben’s only response was just his widened eyes and with that, Kira immediately covered her mouth and looked ashamed. Her anger was as evanescent as it had been abrupt. “I, I didn’t mean to––“ she began.

 

“It’s alright, Kira. I didn’t know what came over me,” he apologized. “You’re entitled to your anger. You’re grieving. And I’m being insensitive fool. I apologize for being a jerk,” he said sincerely.

 

“I’m sorry too. I didn’t mean to be angry to you,” she said apologetically. She then sat down beside him, but averted her gaze from him, still embarrassed of her earlier outburst.

 

“No, it’s alright Kira,” He reasoned.

 

“I know you didn’t mean to hurt my feelings, I know you have a good intention, but––“

 

“Kira,” Ben cut her kindly. “I’m not angry nor offended. I shouldn’t have said it in the first place, I was carried away too,” he reasoned, “A child could not choose whom their parents would be or even asked to be born in the first place. It is their responsibility to take care of you and guide you through out your life. You have taken up their role to take care of yourself, alone, and that’s why I’m mad. A girl of your age should’ve worked on your school prep, experienced those stupid puppy love, learned various things, enjoyed their hobbies, but you’re not––you’re trying to survive.”

 

“That’s why I said those insensitive words about your parent, I’m disappointed in them for their absence and their abuse on you,” he added on. “But you shouldn’t fear them if you’re afraid of becoming one. You will never be them because I know you are a much better person than they are. You’re a kid with a future, smarter than your peers, hell, you invented your time machine. They might not want you in the past, but I assure you, someone will be waiting for you in the future; someone to share your life with, someone who will treasure you dearly.”

 

He brushes a stray strand of hair to tuck it behind her ears. “There is no cloud that stays eternal in the sky. There is no way for the weather to always remain bright. The darkness of the night will go by as the morning breaks, bringing its beauty and light. The life of a man is not dissimilar to that of nature,” he went on as he opened his arm to hold Kira who began to cry again. “After the dark, there comes the light. Do not be sad, Kira. Do not be sad,” he rubbed her back gently. 

 

They sat together on that bench in silence until the sun waned from the sky, till the shadow grew long. He took a glance at her, she seemed content being next to him, still watching the blue and golden horizon. He wondered if she was trying to prolong her return, back to her “present”. _There is no way she is not a local_ , he debated silently. _But I should report this Plutt person to the police and CPS_ , he reflected, _I’m not going to have her stay living her life with that man._

 

“I must go now,” she said suddenly as she stood up.

 

“Back to Plutt? Will––will you be, are you going to be here tomorrow?”  he stuttered.

 

She looked at him for a long time, speechless with her lips pressing into a thin line. A mist, like the aftermath of a shower, made her hazel eyes glisten. “The time machine ran down,” she said. “It needs parts that needs to be replaced––I don’t, I don’t know whether I’ll get the parts to replace them. Mine may be good for one more trip, but I’m not sure.”

 

“But you’ll try to come tomorrow, won’t you?”

 

She nodded. “I’ll try. And Mr. Solo?”

 

“Yes Kira?”

 

His mind went blank when she suddenly held his face and pressed her lips lightly to his forehead. He couldn’t grab the moment that happened so fast, and at once, felt long enough to feel like an eternity. When she released his face, she looked at him wistfully, with a shadow cast over her face that made her expression seemed older.

 

“In case I can’t make it,” she confessed. “And for the record––I love you. I will remember you always.”

 

She was about to run away when Ben suddenly stopped her. “Kira,” he called her name as he held her arm. He took his sketchbook out from his bag and hand it to her. “I’ll be waiting for you,” he said earnestly.

 

Her hands were shaking as she held the sketchbook close against her chest. A tear broke free with the rest running down like an unbroken stream on her cheeks. She left him behind without saying more words. Running down the hill, she disappeared into the grove of sugar maples.

 

His hand trembled as he held the straps of his sling back, and it still did when he clenched it as he descended down the hill and walked back through the woods. He remembered nothing of entering the cabin, or fixing supper, or going to bed. He must have done all of those things in disassociation, because he was awake in his own room, and when he went to the kitchen, he found supper dishes stacked in the basin.

 

He washed the dishes and made himself a coffee. He spent the morning fishing off the pier, keeping his mind blank. He would face the reality later. Right now, it was enough for him to know that she loved him, that in a few short hours he would see her again on the hilltop. Surely that run-down time machine would have no trouble transporting her from the hamlet to the hill.

 

He arrived there early and sat down on the granite bench and waited for her to come out of the woods and climbed the slope. He could feel the hammering beat of his heart and before he knew it, he found his hands trembling. _Days before yesterday, I saw a rabbit, and yesterday a deer, and today, you._

He waited and waited, but she did not show up, neither did she come the next day either. When the shadow began to grew long and the air went chill, he descended the hill and entered the grove of sugar maples. In his mind he was still trying to believe that right now she was having a hard time trying to repair her time machine. He found a path on the leaves-covered ground and followed it deep into the forest, and through the forest, to the hamlet. He stopped at a small convenience store so strategically situated in the area. Inside, his eyes zeroed in to a wizened cashier who was ignoring him for the newspaper he read. He lingered in front of him for a moment, unsure.

 

“Is––is there a girl named Kira living anywhere around here?” He blurted.

 

The cashier shook his head, his eyes still trained to the newspaper. “Never heard of her.”

 

“Or do you know a man called Unkar Plutt? He is her guardian.”

 

The cashier looked at Ben with probing eyes. “Can’t remember all of them,” the cashier replied nonchalantly.

 

After that, although he visited the hill every afternoon till his vacation ran out, he knew it in his heart that she would not return, that she was lost to him as utterly as if she had never been. Evenings he haunted the hamlet, hoping desperately that the local cashier had been mistaken; but he saw no sign of Kira, and the description he gave of her to the passerby, to the police, to the citizen registry hall, evoked only negative responses.

 

Early June he returned to Hanna City. He did his best to act toward Rey as though nothing had changed between them; but she seemed to know the minute she saw him that something had happened. Something had changed. And although she asked no questions, she grew quieter and quieter as the weeks went by, and the fear in her eyes that had puzzled him before became more and more pronounced.

 

He began to drive into the country every Sunday afternoon and visited the hilltop. The woods remained the same, its canopy grew greener and greener as it waited for the summer to pass. Unchanged. And for hours, he sat on the granite bench, staring at the spot where she had disappeared.

_Day before yesterday I saw a rabbit, and yesterday a deer, and today, you._

 

***

“Dad?” he heard Ava called him. It was a lazy Sunday afternoon in a rainy July. He had been watching a reality TV show, which he rarely did, whilst accompanying his daughters having their afternoon tea with Nguyet, Finn and Rose’s oldest daughter, in the family’s living room.

 

Adora had been talking animatedly with her friend, their conversation had spun from cheesy school gossips to other matters like school projects and art classes they both attended. But Ava had always been the silent one, the most sensitive of the twin and of his children. He suspected she grew tired of listening to her sister and Nguyet. While Adora liked to drag Ava into her circle of friends, sometimes she couldn’t help forgetting her when she got excited over something. So much for a wall flower, Ava was the best listener and the closest to him.

 

After all, she took after him the most, second to Rhys.

 

Ava sat beside him and took the remote next to him and switched the channel. She settled on a TV series; an old period spy thriller, the one from the 2010s. Set during the Cold War, two Russian spies led their lives posing as an American married couple living in the suburbs with their children. They watched through an action sequence in silence, none of them flinched when the choreographed action seemed brutal enough.

 

“Dad, did you have a fight with mom?” she blurted.

 

He turned to her; head tilted to the side. Did he hear her wrong? “What? What made you– can you repeat the question?” he choked.

 

“Did you have a fight with mom?” she repeated, slowly. Her eyes were round and dark brown, so much pronounced in her curiosity and uneasiness.

 

“You’ve been acting strange since you returned back from the cabin retreat,” she confessed. “And so has Mom. She has become too reserved. It’s not her usual sulks.”

 

He worked his jaw to consider what Ava had said to him. He couldn’t deny the truth that Rey and him were having a slump. It had never been a fight and it didn’t come out of boredom, or irreconcilable differences, or inequality. A poignant feeling came to him, along with guilt. _Why now? Why don’t you come before?_ He asked the guilt inside him. He had been acting unfairly towards Rey and his children. Being unjust and dishonest for having a short tryst with a girl of the same age as his daughters. He shouldn’t have done that, either as a husband or as a father. In any case, it was irresponsible of him to do that in the first place. And yet, he couldn’t erase his feeling of Kira. He couldn’t disregard his worry about Kira. Her uncertain future, her abusive guardian, her inhabitable living condition…

 

“Dad,” she swallowed nervously. “Are you going to have a divorce?” she asked. He wished he did not see the concern in her eyes. He could only swallow.

 

“No, there is no divorce whatsoever. Your mom and I stay together till the end,” he assured her. “No one is leaving. I’m sorry that we scared you off.”

 

“Really?”

 

“Yes. We’re going to set things straight and you don’t have to worry about anything,” he said as he caressed her daughter’s dark, wavy hair. “Do your brother and Ava know about this?” he asked.

 

“We’ve discussed it in our own chat group. Rhys said that he might come tonight to check on you and Mom. And Adora, she conceals it well, but she’s scared too,” she replied him earnestly.

 

He took a glance at Adora. She was still talking to Nguyet, but he noticed the short glances she kept on taking, directed towards them. She checked out on them, wariness hidden behind her sunny disposition. Wrapped in her enthusiasm for art, shielded beneath a face so painfully alike to Rey’s than him.

 

He decided to give her a fatherly smile instead of looking back at the TV or to Ava and ignored her. He knew that it wouldn’t help her ease her worry, but at least he had given her the picture that he knew there was something wrong, and he was helping them to feel better.

 

“I’ll talk to your mom later,” he gave Ava a peck on the forehead and with that, he stood up to walk out of the living room.

 

But when he was about to climbed the stairs, he stopped to look into his daughters in the living room. “Ava,” he called her, which she responded with a simple curious look directed at him. “You know that I love you as much as I love your siblings and your mother.”

 

Her daughter eyes widened with confusion. She nodded at him, and stared at her sister across the room before looking back at the TV screen.  

 

He went upstairs to his bedroom thinking of what kind of conversation he would start with his wife. His mind wandered here and there until he entered their shared bedroom, his eyes immediately zeroed in to their shared cabinet room with doors wide open. Rey must have gone in a hurry to visit her gathering with her friends. He was about to close the door until he saw a suitcase. _It must’ve been Rey’s,_ he thinks.

 

It must have fallen down from the shelves when Rey was prepared herself to go. The suitcase was aged with deep-earth leather color. He saw bumps and scratches along its surface; there were rust spots on the metal corner bumps that decorated its edges. And there’s the lock, rusted so badly over the years that its latch opened with contents spilled all over the floor. It must’ve been broken because of the fall.

 

He looked over its content. He was sure that it was the same suitcase she had brought with her to the apartment they had rented after she moved in with him, and he remembered how she had always kept it locked. He recalled she once jokingly told him that there were some things a wife had to keep a secret from her husband.

 

Now his curiosity bested him.

 

There was nothing of importance, it was filled with paper brochures, some old books, and few dresses Rey previously owned. It was until he saw a protruding hem of a white dress. It looked vaguely familiar. He had seen the material similar to it not very long time ago––worn with weather-worn gauze wrap that reminded him of celestial maiden’s robe. Of a flowing river.

 

He picked up the dress carefully with trembling fingers. He held it by its shoulders and let it unfold itself, and it hung there in the room, falling stiffly because of its low-grade material. He looked at it for a long time, his throat went tight. Then, tenderly, he folded it back aside and looked into the suitcase again.

 

He saw his sketchbook.

 

The one with a calf-leather cover. It looked so old now, and well-worn with curling paper edges. He recalled it well that Rey had granted this to him and he gave it to Kira…

 

Kira?

 

Rey?

 

With a sudden vigor, he violently opened the sketchbook to flip through the pages. _Yes, it was my sketchbook!_ His mind screamed. He saw the sketches he made, familiar with it as he was the one who made them. Then he saw many sketches that was not of his own. Sketches of a desert scenery, of dead starships, of a flower unfamiliar to him that it was so strange and so wonderful to look at. Every page was filled with a poignant touch of longing and he could tell it. He knew it.

 

Then he saw his face. Many sketches of it. He knew the one that Kira drew, but then he saw those unfamiliar to him. Ben, in the likeness almost real life like. The older one was him in his current age, yet he also saw the others with him looking youthful. He must’ve been around thirty on that drawing.

 

He closed the book and put it inside the suitcase. He proceeded to close the lid and returned it to its niche among the upper cabinet. _Day before yesterday I saw a rabbit, and yesterday a deer, and today, you._

Rain thrummed steadily on the roof. The tightness of his throat was so acute now that he thought for a moment that he was going to cry. He went out of his room to walk down the stairs in a hurry. He grabbed his keys and ran to his SUV, uncaring whether his sweater soaked in the rainwater or whether the ground was slippery or not. He heard Ava call him but he could not bring himself to care. _Rey is Kira. And Kira is Rey._

Soon he was away from his house, he checked on the digital clock of the car’s dashboard. Six past thirty, it would take him twenty minutes’ to Maz’s bar. They would decide it’s time to go back home and he could’ve missed her, but instead of speeding his car up, his mind kept on circling back to her.

 

Kira Rey? 

 

 _Was that her full name? No_. People invariably retained part of their original names when adopting aliases; and having completely altered her last name, she had probably thought it was safe to take liberties with her first name. She must have done other things too, in addition to changing her name to elude the Time Police. No wonder she had never wanted her picture taken! And how terrified she must have been on long-ago when she had stepped into his old studio! All alone in a strange generation, an all-new world for her, not knowing for sure whether her concept of time was valid, not knowing for sure whether the man who would love her in his fifty would feel the same way toward her in his twenty-nine. She had come back all right, just as she had said she would.

 

 _All these years_ , he thought wonderingly, _and all the while she must have known that one day, I’d climb a May hill and see her standing, young and lovely, in the sun, and fall in love with her all over again. She had to know because the moment was as much as part of her past as it was part of my future. Why doesn’t she tell me now?_

Suddenly he understood.

 

He stopped before Maz’s, lucky enough to snatch a parking space in front of the busy bar. Rey and her friends were standing in front of the bar, saying goodbye and promising to each other that they would meet each other again next week, at the same space, at the same time.

 

He opened the door to stand in the rain, marveling his wife in a new light he had never seen her before. As the rain dropped on his cheek, he noticed that his wife had aged gracefully, retaining her youth for a forty-year-old lady who spent most of her time happily surrounded by her family, friends, and projects she dedicated herself into. The joyful spark in her eyes, the happy blush on her freckled cheeks, the crease in her smile, didn’t she realize that in his eyes she couldn’t grow old––she had lost her girlish charm, yet her gentle loveliness still resided in her. Standing in front of the bar in that sand colored trench coat, Rey’s long and slender legs had a grace and symmetry in the pale glow of the July street light, that they had never been touched by the golden radiance of the May sun.

 

She hadn’t aged a day since the moment she had entered his old studio and stood in that May hilltop.

 

Her eyes widened when she saw him in the rain. She bid her goodbye to her friends before running towards him, muttering “ _Why are you standing there? You could’ve gotten yourself a cold!_ ”. She would not notice the raindrops that fell on his cheek were also his tears.

 

The rain grew heavier and she pushed him to get into the car before she ran around to open the other door and get inside. She folded her wet umbrella as she complained about the weather, but she seemed content enough with the falling rain. Of course, she had rarely experienced the rain before she went into this era, it must’ve been a luxury to see one. She connected the wireless of her smartphone to the car’s audio, and the space was now filled with a soft orchestral tune of a song. She kept on talking, rambling on stuff she had discussed with her friends today, especially of Rose’s new pregnancy, but he knew it was her way to cover her nervousness.

 

“Ben?” she called him.

 

Worry soon etched her face, so similar to Adora’s, that he couldn’t help gazing on the little details that peppered her features.

 

He held her face in his hand and he couldn’t stop a sob coming from his chest. “Kira,” he called her.

 

She remained silent. A single tear fell from her eyes, followed by others like a never-ending stream.

 

“All this time?” he sobbed.

 

Her lips quivered as she now covered his hands on her face. “Far, far, in the future there was this little girl,” she started. “She was praying for something big to happen to her.”

 

“After her journey to the past, where she met this man, a kind man who listens to her and sees her as if she was a magic made real; she fell in love with him. Every night she dreamt of him and of this beautiful, strange life. And she knew she had to go back because she knew that’s where she belongs to.”

 

“Ben, you’re where I belong to,” she sobbed as she scooted closer to hug him, not caring of his wet sweater.

 

The knife-sharp tightness in his chest are now gone. He closed his eyes as relief washed him. His wife, his Rey, his Kira, now in his arms. All is right in the world now. All is right. The fear in her eyes, poignant beyond the endurance because now he understood its cause, was gone, replaced by tears of joy.

 

And when he cradled her face in the comfort of their bed that night, he reached out across the years and touched her tears-wet cheek and kissed her forehead, her nose, and her lips gently in the silence of the clear rain-washed sky. He knew that she was aware that it was all right then. The fear had gone away forever. All they had to do was to spend their days together, and it was all. Because all that she endured had been paid sweetly in the arms of her husband and the certainty of the present.

 

All is right in the good world now.

 

_As right as the day before yesterday I saw a rabbit, and yesterday a deer, and today, you, in my arms. Beloved._

 

 

 

 

 

**The End**

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Music: 
> 
>  
> 
> [On the Nature of Daylight by Max Richter](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=InyT9Gyoz_o)
> 
>  
> 
> [On the Nature of Daylight (Entropy) by Max Richter](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b_YHE4Sx-08)
> 
>  
> 
> Did you guys find the Smashing Pumpkin's reference?
> 
> Reference:
> 
> This was quoted by R.A. Kartini (an Indonesian national hero, hailed as the first Indonesian feminist):
> 
> There is no cloud that stays eternal in the sky  
> There is no way for the weather to always remain bright  
> The darkness of the night will go by as the morning breaks, bringing its beauty and light  
> The life of a man is not dissimilar to that of nature
> 
> After the dark, there comes the light
> 
> The original translation supposed to be:
> 
> Tiada awan di langit yang tetap selamanya.  
> Tiada mungkin akan terus menerus terang cuaca.  
> Sehabis malam gelap gulita lahir pagi membawa keindahan  
> Kehidupan manusia serupa alam.
> 
> Setelah gelap, datanglah terang.
> 
> "Do not be sad" is a popular Arabic phrase that translated to "La Tahzan" (pst, they have a book about it with the same title, it is those self-help books). 
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> Your Comment help me to improve!
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**Author's Note:**

> Music: 
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> [Written on the Sky by Max Richter](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yShmGUlylzA)
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> [On the Nature of Daylight by Max Richter](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=InyT9Gyoz_o)
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